And in effect he did not reign above two years.
To the said Claudian also, inquiring concerning his
brother Quintilius, whom he proposed as a colleague
with himself in the empire, happened the response following
in the Sixth of the Aeneids—­

Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata.

Whom Fate let us see,
And would no longer suffer him to be.

And it so fell out; for he was killed on the seventeenth
day after he had attained unto the management of the
imperial charge. The very same lot, also, with
the like misluck, did betide the Emperor Gordian the
younger. To Claudius Albinus, being very solicitous
to understand somewhat of his future adventures, did
occur this saying, which is written in the Sixth of
the Aeneids—­

Hic rem Romanam magno turbante tumultu
Sistet Eques, &c.

The Romans, boiling with tumultuous rage,
This warrior shall the dangerous storm
assuage:
With victories he the Carthaginian mauls,
And with strong hand shall crush the rebel
Gauls.

Likewise, when the Emperor D. Claudius, Aurelian’s
predecessor, did with great eagerness research after
the fate to come of his posterity, his hap was to
alight on this verse in the First of the Aeneids—­

Hic ego nec metas rerum, nec tempora pono.

No bounds are to be set, no limits here.

Which was fulfilled by the goodly genealogical row
of his race. When Mr. Peter Amy did in like
manner explore and make trial if he should escape the
ambush of the hobgoblins who lay in wait all-to-bemaul
him, he fell upon this verse in the Third of the Aeneids—­

Heu! fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus
avarum!

Oh, flee the bloody land, the wicked shore!

Which counsel he obeying, safe and sound forthwith
avoided all these ambuscades.

Were it not to shun prolixity, I could enumerate a
thousand such like adventures, which, conform to the
dictate and verdict of the verse, have by that manner
of lot-casting encounter befallen to the curious researchers
of them. Do not you nevertheless imagine, lest
you should be deluded, that I would upon this kind
of fortune-flinging proof infer an uncontrollable and
not to be gainsaid infallibility of truth.

Chapter 3.XI.

How Pantagruel showeth the trial of one’s fortune
by the throwing of dice to be unlawful.